HSP: New moon, new shuttle, new torus.

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"I believe that this save file should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next version is out (or before a new version breaks the save, anyway), of landing a Kerman on every planet and moon in the stock system and returning them safely to Kerbin."

So I've been playing with the 1.2 prerelease for the past few weeks after a couple months away from KSP, and I'm having so much fun with it compared to the bugfest of 1.1.x and the slideshow of 1.0.x that I figured I'd finally try another serious career save. Yes, I really should wait for 1.2 to go final but whatever. Now is when I have time.

Anyway, I'm going for a completely stock career this time (with the exception of the new PorkJet rocket parts, which I think of as sort of "proto-stock"). I'll probably install some cosmetic mods once 1.2 is final, but no part mods or gameplay mods. Not trying to do anything fancy with the report thread either, at least not for the moment, I just figure it might be more fun this way than just posting in the "what did you do today" thread every day like I did with my old 1.0.2 career.

Sub-spolier: Difficulty settings.

Spoiler

Fund penalties are at 10% to keep Kerbal hiring costs civilized, since I've edited my contracts.cfg to completely disable rescues (mostly because they don't get along with the silly new weighting system) so I'll have to hire all my Kerbonauts with actual money. (This has the side effect of making building upgrades practically free, but whatever. They're mostly just a nuisance in the early game anyway. ) Rep penalties at 1,000% to sort of make up for it.

In spite of quicksaves and reverts being enabled, I will follow a no-reverts rule, even including Kraken attacks. The only exception is F5/F9'ing to fix bugs (in particular the one with the landing legs) and reverting from the launch pad/runway.

Related to the above I'm also starting without the "original four," partly because I like the variety of having unique Kerbals right from the start and partly because I'm kind of fond of Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val, which makes sticking to the no-reloads rule that much harder if I should happen to kill one of them. I may try to edit the save file to make my originals "veterans" at some point (which might or might not give them orange suits, I haven't checked).

One other personal rule for this save: adequate extra space on deep-space missions (at least 2 seats per Kerbal), and more generally sticking to sensible-sized missions (bare minimum crew of 2 but preferably 3+ for anything past Minmus, or long-term stations). No single Kerbals in Mk 1 lander cans on 20 year missions to Eeloo.

Left to right: Kerzer, Burmin, and Melxie. (Appearances subject to change once Texture Replacer is updated for 1.2.)Texture Replacer installed, picture updated to one showing the original Kerbonauts' "correct" appearances. All three are pilots; the Space Program doesn't expect to have much use for anybody else until more advanced spacecraft are developed.

Spoiler: Audacity program, first Kermanned missions (read: early game stuff we've all done a million times before which I'm trying to zip through quickly so this thread doesn't get too boring).

Spoiler

After Kerzer performed some initial ground tests and instrument calibrations which weren't interesting enough for anyone to bother taking pictures of, the Mk 1 capsule was ready for the first flight of Project Audacity.

Audacity I sent Burmin to an apoapsis of 39 kilometers on an Uffish I rocket (i. e. an RT-10 with some fins duct-taped to it). It landed safely after a 6 minute 20 second flight, returning observations and temperature data from the upper atmosphere.

Audacity II, with improved instrumentation (we've invented the barometer!), was launched on an Uffish II (same as I but with higher thrust and a Flea second stage).

Melxie: First Kerman in space! Audacity II reached an apoapsis of 97 kilometers and landed safely, returning the first scientific data and direct observations from beyond the atmosphere.

Audacity III, piloted by Kerzer and launched on a Manxome I rocket, was the first mission to Kerbin orbit.

Kerzer: First Kerman to achieve the First Cosmic Velocity! (After landing, he was criticized by the media for failing to get any pictures that included both his face and the spacecraft. He claims he was too busy trying to get his jetpack to fly straight.) Kerzer also completed the first spacewalk during the mission, and Audacity III was boosted by the Manxome second stage to an apoapsis of 400 kilometers, where it collected data and observations from high altitude. Kerzer and the spacecraft returned safely to Kerbin after a 4 hour, 49 minute flight.

Audacity IV was basically identical to III except that it also carried a materials bay and mystery goo units. Burmin performed an EVA to collect data from the bay before returning to Kerbin.

After the success of Audacity III and IV, the Space Program recruited its first two scientist Kerbonauts, Laselle and Tangel. (No pictures of them cause let's face it: they all look the same anyway. I miss Texture Replacer.)

An unguided Uffish I (we tilted it a bit on the launch clamp to send it out over the ocean) launched Laselle aboard Audacity V on a suborbital mission to collect data from the upper atmosphere.

Audacity VI (Melxie) was a scientific flight identical to IV, except that it was boosted to a 400 kilometer apoapsis to collect materials data from high space.

Spoiler: Prudence program, early probes. (This is an unusually long post cause I'm trying to get through all the early game stuff in one go.)

Spoiler

Another Manxome rocket launched Prudence 1, the Space Program's first unkermanned mission. Originally intended to fly by the Mun and into Kerbolar orbit, the payload fairing damaged both of its high-gain antennas, so it was redirected into Munar orbit. In spite of the antenna problem it successfully transmitted temperature, pressure, and materials data.

(OOC: I'm a little concerned that just two of the low-gain antennas were able to reach the DSN from the Mun, I thought they were really just for Kerbin orbit. I may edit my save file to put the DSN multiplier back to 1.0.)

Prudence 2 was identical to 1 except for some changes to the rocket's payload fairing. It only lost one of its two high-gain antennas, and so was able to complete its intended mission: fly by Minmus, then enter Kerbolar orbit, becoming in the process the first Kerman-made object to achieve the Second Cosmic Speed (i. e. Kerbin escape velocity) and returning the first scientific data from Minmus as well as from beyond Kerbin's sphere of influence.

Prudence 3 was a survey probe to polar Munar orbit, notable mainly for being the first of the series to have both its high-gain antennas survive launch. (Ironically, since it was only going as far as the Mun it didn't actually need them.)

Spoiler (last one for this post, I promise): Patience 1, first space station.

Spoiler

The first space station of the Space Program, Patience 1, was launched unkermanned on a Manxome II rocket.

With two docking ports, an airlock, a full suite of science instruments and antennas, and room for five Kermen, Patience 1 is by far the largest thing yet put into orbit. The first crews will be delivered by in improved version of the Audacity spacecraft, while future missions may be flown on a three-Kerman vehicle still under development, tentatively named Project Valor.

UPDATE: So I just checked the Texture Replacer thread and there's already a preliminary build for 1.2! No more cheesy vanilla skybox! No more identical Kerbals! No more helmets in atmo! I honestly didn't realize just how essential TR is to my KSP experience until I spent a couple weeks playing 1.2 pre without it. Seriously, if I could only have one mod, it'd probably be that one.

Edited Wednesday at 10:12 PM by HotaruOP edits

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Really great screenshots, and one of the more entertaining "get the boring early stuff everyone's done out of the way" mission reports I've ever seen, especially since you actually said, "I'm going to get the boring early stuff everyone's done out of the way."

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Really great screenshots, and one of the more entertaining "get the boring early stuff everyone's done out of the way" mission reports I've ever seen, especially since you actually said, "I'm going to get the boring early stuff everyone's done out of the way."

I'm starting to wish I had done that in my no revert Career playthrough too.

looking forward to what happens next!

Edited September 27, 2016 by Thedrelleodd break in a sentence fixed!

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Starting to get past the boring early game into the slightly more interesting mid-game. Which means things are getting a little easy in terms of and , see boring stuff for how I'm thinking of dealing with this.

Spoiler: Boring stuff.

Spoiler

Mod changes:

So it turns out a number of cosmetic mods have already been updated for 1.2, not just Texture Replacer. Still waiting on EVE, Real Plume, and Engine Lighting (the last two of which because of Module Manager), and I'm having trouble with Scatterer's atmo (can't get rid of the "halo" around the planet) but its sunflare is working fine so for now I've just disabled all the atmosphere configs so at least I can have custom sunflares and, hopefully, terrain shadows. The current mod list is as follows:

DSN has been reverted back to default 1.0 range (so far no noticeable gameplay effect). I've also given myself a 50% "budget cut" (FundsGainMultiplier = 0.5) because I've gotten to the point in the game where the early grind is over and I suddenly have more funds than I know what to do with (over 2 million at this point), compounded by the fact that I've basically disabled building upgrade costs.

My current clever plan is to save up science to buy the -> strategy at 50% commitment, which will help make the tech tree last a bit longer. It's a bit of a hack to make up for poor gameplay balance, but it'll hopefully keep both the mid-game (Kerbin system) and the late game (interplanetary) at least marginally interesting. I may give myself another budget cut later on, but I don't want to go too crazy and force myself to use nothing but fully-reusable vehicles for anything. I did that in my last save, and while setting up the reusable systems was a fun challenge, actually using them in practice was pretty tedious (and that was with MechJeb automating everything). So I'd prefer to stick mostly to expendable systems this time around.

For the record, my general rule on save file edits is they're OK as long as their either purely cosmetic (e. g. changing the flag on a vehicle) or make the game harder rather than easier. Budget cuts yes, budget increases no.

The Space Program's first commercial satellite, Rockomax 1, was launched to high Kerbin orbit on a Manxome 1B. (OOC: No, I'm not going to post pictures of every contractsat, but I thought I'd at least put up one of the first one. Not least cause I get to show off the nifty new skybox.)

Another Manxome launched Prudence 4 to Minmus orbit, where it completed a series of temperature surveys and searched, unsuccessfully, for an anomaly detected during the Prudence 3 flyby.

Spoiler: Audacity D program, first visit to Patience 1.

Spoiler

Audacity D-1, piloted by Kerzer and launched on a Manxome IB, was intended to be the first mission to Patience 1.

Unfortunately, it turned out the Manxome I couldn't quite handle the extra mass of the Audacity D's service module. The spacecraft failed to achieve orbit, but the capsule separated from the rocket and service module and made a safe reentry and landing.

Audacity D-2 was launched on a more powerful Manxome IIB.

Burmin successfully piloted the ship to the first space rendezvous and docking with Patience 1.

Once the two ships had linked up, Burmin transferred to the space station to begin the Space Program's first long-duration mission.

Spoiler: Project Valor test series, three-Kerman spaceplane. (Remember when I said three spoilers would be more than usual? Yeah, that was probably a lie.)

Spoiler

Launched unkermanned on an Uffish IB rocket, Valor 1 was the first suborbital test flight of the new three-Kerman Valor spaceplane, designed to deliver passengers and crew to Patience 1 and future stations more efficiently than the Audacity series.

To the surprise of everyone, it worked perfectly, parachuting to a safe landing near the space center.

Valor 2, also unkermanned and launched on a Manxome IIIB, was meant to be the first orbital test of the vehicle.

Unfortunately, due to a manufacturing defect, the vehicle lost attitude control a few seconds after liftoff. The Valor spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket and parachuted to a landing.

Appropriate people were sacked, and Valor 3 lifted off on a properly-stiffened Manxome IIIB.

Unfortunately, the guidance system couldn't compensate for the unstable configuration and the vehicle went out of control about a minute into the flight. Once again the Valor spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle and returned to KSC.

Spoiler: Valor 4, first kermanned mission.

Spoiler

The engineers at KSC were convinced that the problem was with the guidance system, not the actual Manxome-Valor spacecraft, so in spite of the failures of Valor 2 and 3, Valor 4 was cleared for the first kermanned flight, piloted by Melxie.

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Thanks for the comments! I'm a little surprised anybody's showing much interest at this early stage, but then again I myself seem to be finding the mid-game more interesting than usual as well. I guess I'm focusing more on RP considerations and less on farming science to max out the tech tree. In fact I've been making a point of not unlocking new tech nodes until I absolutely have to; I want to see how far I can go with mid-game tech before I start unlocking late-game stuff.

No mod or save-file changes this time, so no boring stuff and straight on to the actual missions:

Spoiler: Discretion series, first unkermanned landings on Minmus.

Spoiler

Launched on a Manxome IB, Discretion 1 was the first attempt to put a probe on the surface of another celestial body.

The landing on the Greater Flats of Minmus was successful, although due to problems with the fabric of reality on-board cameras it did not return the expected spectacular images of the surrounding mountains. Also, due to difficulties with the laws of physics landing gear, the probe went berserk fell over after a few seconds on the surface. Mission controllers were only able to restore the probe's sanity stability by retracting its landing legs, so it ended up lying on its side. In spite of the Kraken attacks difficulties, Discretion 1 returned good temperature and pressure data from the surface.

After the engineers made some adjustments to the landing gear (and after Discretion 2 was destroyed when its payload fairing failed to deploy and it reentered Kerbin's atmosphere), Discretion 3 made a Kraken-free successful landing on the lowlands of Minmus.

Spoiler: Patience 1 ops.

Spoiler

A Manxome IIB launched Kerzer to Patience 1 aboard Audacity D-3, the first mission to feature a launch escape system rather than just an abort procedure--from now on these will be required on all kermanned launches.

Burmin handed off "command" of the station to Kerzer before returning to Kerbin aboard Audacity D-2.

Practically as soon as he had landed, Burmin was on his way back to the station in command of Valor 5, the first operational flight of the Valor spacecraft and the first time multiple Kerbals were put in space on a single launch. Also aboard were scientist Laselle and engineer Chris.

Valor 5 successfully delivered the first full three-Kerman crew to Patience 1. Kerzer transferred command (no longer in quotation marks now that there's an actual crew to be in command of) back to Burmin and returned to Kerbin aboard Audacity D-3. This is his departing view of the station.

Spoiler: Rationality 1, first interplanetary mission.

Spoiler

Rationality 1, the Space Program's first attempt to visit another planet, was launched to Duna aboard a Manxome IB rocket.

The probe is built around a more advanced core than the Prudence series, and features a newly-developed high-gain antenna. It's currently on course to make a close flyby of Ike before capturing into orbit of Duna.

Also happened, but not interesting enough to post pictures of:

Prudence 4 in Minmus orbit made another unsuccessful attempt to locate the anomaly detected during the Prudence 2 flyby.

Prudence 3 completed a series of temperature surveys of the Mun.

Rockomax 1 and Prudence 4 both had their orbits adjusted to satisfy contracts.

Upcoming:

Return of Valor 5 to Kerbin.

Audacity D-4 mission to attach an automated retro-rocket module to Patience 1 in preparation for station's retirement. The flight will test several technologies which will be needed for the construction of future space stations and deep-space operations.

Deorbit and reentry of Patience 1.

Arrival of Rationality 1 at Duna-Ike system.

Audacity DS-1, first test flight of the Deep Space variant of the Audacity spacecraft. (Incidentally, the "D" in Audacity D stood for "Docking.")

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One thing I'm noticing is how hard it is to keep track of time without KAC, and how pointless it is without KCT or life support. I've decided Kerbals have only an order-of-magnitude sense of the passage of time: they can tell the difference between a mission lasting hours and one lasting months, but the difference between, say, a two-week mission and a six-week mission doesn't bother them.

Spoiler: Retirement of Patience 1.

Spoiler

After a long stay aboard Patience 1, Burmin, Laselle, and Chris returned to Kerbin aboard Valor 5. This was Chris's view out the passenger window during reentry.

A Manxome IIB launched Audacity D-4 on the final mission to the space station.

Melxie performed the first transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver of the Space Program to remove the deorbit module from the spent Manxome second stage.

She then rendezvoused with Patience 1, attached the module, and undocked. This was her departing view of the station.

Audacity DS-4 returned safely to Kerbin, splashing down east of KSC.

The retro-rockets were fired remotely and Patience 1 reentered the atmosphere, impacting in the mountains on the crater rim.

Spoiler: Discretion 4 and Rationality 1, probes to the Mun and Duna.

Spoiler

Discretion 4, launched on a Manxome IB, made the Space Program's first unkermanned landing on the Mun, transmitting science data from the Munar highlands.

The probe completed two close flybys of Ike before aerobraking into low Duna orbit. It transmitted science and pressure data from both bodies as well as the upper atmosphere of Duna.

Spoiler: Audacity DS-1, test flight.

Spoiler

A Manxome IIB launched Kerzer aboard Audacity DS-1, the first test flight of the Deep Space version of the Audacity spacecraft.

The spacecraft, which features new solar panels, a high-gain antenna, improved fuel capacity, and an orbital module for long-duration flight, performed well and Kerzer returned to Kerbin after a few weeks in orbit.

Also:

Prudence 1 and 3vanished mysteriously lost contact with KSC from Munar orbit. The engineers believe they were eaten by space krakens impacted on the Mun due to orbital decay.

A bunch of contractsats were launched to various places including the Mun, Minmus, and retrograde Kerbin orbit.

Upcoming:

Audacity DS-2, first kermanned flight around the Mun.

Further Audacity DS missions to Munar and Minmus orbit.

Launch of Patience 2 space station.

Launch of Rationality 2 Eve orbiter.

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I'm enjoying the mid-game too. I specially like the approach of pushing the limits of current tech until it is absolutely necessary to unlock the next node. It makes us realize how efficient we can actually get, and how creative.

Unfortunately, it seems the pictures of every post but the first two are now broken. Is anyone else having this experience or it's on my end?

Edited October 5, 2016 by chicobaptistagrammar derping

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I'm enjoying the mid-game too. I specially like the approach of pushing the limits of current tech until it is absolutely necessary to unlock the next node. It makes us realize how efficient we can actually get, and how creative.

I'm kind of working at two conflicting goals here, one being to take the tech tree slow and the other to RP more reasonable missions than usual. I've easily got the tech to land a basic direct ascent mission with a Mk1 pod on the Mun at this point, and probably to go a lot further if I wanted too, but I'm also having fun making more "realistic" sized missions.

Quote

Unfortunately, it seems the pictures of every post but the first two are now broken. Is anyone else having this experience or its on my end?

They're still showing up OK for me. Are you on a phone? All but two of the pictures are inside spoilers, which helps make the page load better on computers but might cause problems on phones. (I asked the powers that be after the forum update to let us go back to 10 posts per page instead of 25, which would've made pic-heavy threads readable again without spoilers, but they ignored me.)

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They're still showing up OK for me. Are you on a phone? All but two of the pictures are inside spoilers, which helps make the page load better on computers but might cause problems on phones. (I asked the powers that be after the forum update to let us go back to 10 posts per page instead of 25, which would've made pic-heavy threads readable again without spoilers, but they ignored me.)

Not on a phone no. But today it worked without a hitch. It was probably on my end, them interwebs have mysterious ways sometimes. Now that I could actually see them, I'm much impressed with the Prudence station and the Valor spaceplane. They are so cute! (One may prefer the most technical term "efficient", or "minimalist" but meh) Looking forward to your kerballed exploration of the Kerbin System.

23 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Have I mentioned how much I like the name Manxome? Looking forward to the Frabjous series.

After scratching my head for a while trying to figure that one out, I finally googled it. I've yet to read any of Carrol's works on english, sadly. There are just some works that translation attempts can't do them justice. I take it Manxome is a reference to the power of the lifter?

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You can say that again. Glad you got to see the pictures in the end though.

13 hours ago, chicobaptista said:

One may prefer the most technical term "efficient", or "minimalist" but meh

No, no, "cute" is fine!

13 hours ago, chicobaptista said:

After scratching my head for a while trying to figure that one out, I finally googled it. I've yet to read any of Carrol's works on english, sadly. There are just some works that translation attempts can't do them justice. I take it Manxome is a reference to the power of the lifter?

Yeah, I can see where the joke/reference in the rocket names would be lost on a non-native English speaker (or just anybody who doesn't happen to be a fan of the same 19th century English writers as me, and apparently Kuzzter). "Manxome," "Uffish," and "Frumious" are completely and utterly made-up words. You can try to guess at their meaning from the context within the poem but the fact is they don't have actual definitions. Although a couple of Carroll's other made-up words ("galumph" and "chortle") have in fact made their way into common usage.

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One other thing the rocket names bring up is another "personal rule" I didn't really plan on following, but have sort of ended up sticking with anyway: everything goes up on standardized launch vehicles, and new launch vehicles are developed only when absolutely necessary. Similarly, new engines, especially big ones, are only developed when absolutely necessary: I still haven't unlocked any of the 2.5m engines, and plan on at least trying to build the next generation of launch vehicles without them. I see no reason why the Mun and Minmus, and possibly even early missions to Duna and Eve, shouldn't be within reach of the T45. Well, of lots of T45s anyway. It's going to take five of them just to orbit the Mun.

I'm allowing myself to indulge in a little more detail than usual for this post since it concerns two "milestone" missions: the first kermanned orbits of the Mun and Minmus. I'll probably continue going into more and more detail as I get further out into the kerbolar system and the missions start to get more elaborate than just "went up, docked, stayed a bit, came back."

Boring, but not long enough for a spoiler: installed Reentry Effects, removed Scatterer. Will probably move this save over to Windows since I think the Scatterer problems are OSX specific and I really miss that mod. Will also start thinking about installing Module Manager-dependent mods (like Real Plume and Engine Lighting) now that MM is updated for 1.2.

The Manxome IIIC rocket on the pad the night before the launch of Audacity DS-2.

Once in orbit, the LV-909 engine of the Manxome second stage--the IIIC has a larger one then previous marks--reignites to send the Audacity spacecraft on its way to the Mun.

The second stage is set on a trajectory to impact the Mun, while Burmin adjusts the course of Audacity DS-2 to put it on a free-return trajectory around the Mun. While he will use the reentry capsule for launch and landing, Burmin will spend most of the mission piloting the ship from the more spacious orbital module.

After a day-long journey Audacity DS-2 approaches the Mun. This is Burmin's view from the orbital module as Kerbin and the Sun disappear behind the Munar horizon.

The Audacity service module engine fires on the far side of the Mun to capture into Munar orbit. This is Burmin's view of "Kerbinrise" as the ship emerges from behind the Mun.

Burmin: First Kerman to orbit the Mun!

After several days circling the Mun, Burmin fires the service module engine again to return to Kerbin.

Audacity DS-2 arrived near the full Mun, when the far side was in darkness, but by the time he left the Mun was nearly new. Burmin had a clear view of the Munar far side as his ship departed Munar orbit.

"Blue marble" view of the full Kerbin during Burmin's return voyage. (Yes I'm copying all the famous Apollo photos, shut up.)

After the day-long trip back to Kerbin, Audacity DS-2 jettisoned its orbital and service modules and reentered the atmosphere.

Burmin landed safely in the grasslands of Kerbin, planting a flag to mark the spot where the first Kerman returned from another world.

Spoiler: Audacity DS-3, first kermanned mission to Minmus.

Spoiler

A few weeks later and another Manxome IIIC launches Melxie and Audacity DS-3.

Booster separation. The boosters and first stage carry the vehicle nearly to orbit; the second stage completes the circularization but is mainly used as a transfer stage.

The LV-909 reignites to send Melxie on a four-day trajectory to Minmus. Unlike the previous mission, Audacity DS-3 takes a hyperbolic escape trajectory rather than a free-return. The spent rocket stage will go into Kerbolar orbit.

Melxie: First Kerman to achieve the Second Cosmic Speed!

Melxie takes the obligitory EVA selfie during the approach to Minmus.

Because the ship is on an escape trajectory out of the Kerbin system, the insertion burn is a more critical maneuver. Fortunately, it goes smoothly, and Audacity DS-3 is safely in Minmus orbit.

Melxie remains in orbit for several days, surveying the surface and once again failing to spot the anomaly detected by the Prudence 2 flyby misison.

Mission complete, Audacity DS-3 departs on a hyperbolic trajectory back to Kerbin.

Four days later the spacecraft makes the first reentry at interplanetary speed.

The heat shield withstands reentry without trouble, and Audacity DS-3 splashes down safely in the ocean.

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Boring stuff: Moved the save over to my Windows install and got Scatterer working again. Removed Distant Object Enhancement (broken in latest builds). Still waiting for Engine Lighting (not sure about this one, it hasn't been updated in a while) and Real Plume.

Yet another Manxome launched Circumspection 1, the Space Program's first attempt to land on another planet. Unfortunately its high-gain antennas turned out not to have the expected range to maintain communication with Kerbin via Rationality 2, but the engineers at KSC are optimistic they will regain contact with the probe once it arrive in the Eve system.

Spoiler: Intrepidity 1, test flight.

Spoiler

New rocket, new spacecraft: a Frumious I rocket, powered by five LV-T45 engines, launches pilot Kerzer and engineer Lizdrien aboard Intrepidity 1, the first test flight of the spacecraft that will eventually put Kermen on the Mun and Minmus.

"Eventually" because it turns out the engineers severely overestimated the power of the Frumious first stage, and the spacecraft reentered the atmosphere without acheiving orbit. It made a safe landing, and an improved launch vehicle is under development.

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I'm liking the title banner more each time I look at it. @Andem, what kind of filters/post processing effects/whatever do you use on your screenshots? I've been looking at the ones in your thread and they're, if anything, even nicer.

No boring stuff this time, mainly because all this happened before 1.2 went final so the mod situation hadn't changed. Hoping for some new mods (SVE/SVT, anyone?) in the next update.

The Frumious I rocket was an abject failure, having turned out to have a lifting capacity hardly better than the Manxome III. However, like most tricky space engineering problems, the solution to this one turned out to be the application of boosters.

With no time or budget to develop another completely new launch vehicle, the engineers at KSC simply doubled the length of the Frumious I fuel tanks and added four solid rocket boosters to compensate for the additional weight. The result was the Frumious II, which successfully orbited P1 Burmin (veteran of the first circummunar flight, Audacity DS-2) and E1 Chris aboard Intrepeidity 2.

Burmin and Chris checked out the ship in low Kerbin orbit and, finding no problems, were cleared by flight control to continue their mission around the Mun.

A nighttime departure burn with the LV-909 service module engine put Intrepidity 2 on a free-return trajectory around the Mun.

Thanks to the enormous number of commercial comsats now buzzing around Kerbin, the Mun, and MInmus, Intrepidity 2 remained in continuous contact with Flight Control throughout the mission, including several orbits around the far side of the Mun.

Having arrived near the new Mun and with Scatterer finally working better telephoto lenses than previous missions, Chris and Burmin became the first Kermen to observe a total Kerbolar eclipse from Munar orbit.

After completing several orbits of the Mun, Intrepidity 2 returned safely to Kerbin.

Spoiler: Audacity D-5 and D-6, space station assembly missions.

Spoiler

A Manxome IIB rocket launched a node module for space station Patience 2 along with Melxie and Audacity D-5.

The spacecraft acheived orbit in spite of the ungainly fairing, and Melxie performed a transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver to retrieve the node from the spent Manxome second stage. She then rendezvoused with Patience 2, attached the node, and returned to Kerbin.

Audacity D-6, piloted by Kerzer, was a similar mission to attach an instrument module to the station.

Kerzer successfully retrieved the module, attached it to the node, and returned to Kerbin. Although not yet finished, the station is now ready to receive its first regular crew aboard Valor 6.

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Very entertaining Thoroughly enjoyed reading through your progress so far!

Shame FinalFrontier (if you're aware of it) wasn't ready for 1.2 by the time you started the career - it's an awesome mod for keeping track of individual Kerbal achievements.

Thanks! I am aware of Final Frontier and have used it in the past, great mod. I'm not too worried about it for this career though, seeing as I'm keeping pretty detailed track of which Kerbals have done what anyway. (Besides, with no rescue contracts I don't anticipate ever having more than a couple dozen of them to keep track of.)

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1.2 is final, which means a lot of mods are being updated! The main highlight of this update is SVE (I've been putting off the arrival of the Eve probes for this), but here's the complete list as of this update:

SVT is still waiting on Kopernicus at last check, but I've already added a bunch more for the next update--including Real Plume, so this should be the last update with the cheesy vanilla exhaust effects.

Boring stuff TL;DR: SVE!

The crew of the first kermanned mission to the surface of the Mun--flight engineer Chris, mission commander Melxie, scientist Laselle--with the prototype Intrepidity Block II lander.

Spoiler: Valor 6B, first crew to Patience 2.

Spoiler

Valor 6B delivered mission commander Burmin, flight engineer Lizdrien, and scientist Tangel on the first mission to space station Patience 2. (6B because Valor 6, the first attempt to launch the same crew, ended in an abort when the vehicle lost control during the gravity turn.)

This was Tangel's view of Kerbin during the ascent. Lack of clouds in images from previous missions was obviously due to a glitch in the fabric of realitythe whole Space Program up to now being a hoax a bizarrely persistent weather anomaly the photos being underexposed.

Valor 6B successfully rendezvoused with Patience 2.

Spoiler: Rationality 2 and Circumspection 1 at Eve, Circumspection 2 at the Mun.

Spoiler

Rationality 2 successfully captured into an eccentric orbit of Eve, returning the first scientific data from Eve orbit and (after a very shallow pass that nonetheless nearly destroyed the solar arrays) the planet's upper atmosphere.

Circumspection 1, on the other hand, did not regain contact with mission control after separation from its cruise stage; flight controllers believe it either burned up in the atmosphere or failed to deploy its antenna properly.

(OOC: It was the first one, although the probe was out of contact at the time so nobody on Kerbin knows that. I THINK the problem was the heat shield didn't occlude the back shell fairing properly, as that was the first part to overheat, but it might've been just too hot of a trajectory. I may do some testing on this in sandbox, seeing as this was my first attempt to land on Eve since 1.0.2 and the atmo was pretty different then.)

Because we needed a few more science points so we could invent the ladder were interested in studying surface conditions on the Munar far side, Circumspection 2 was sent to the large Far Side Crater first imaged by the Prudence 1 orbiter, where it returned temperature and pressure data as well as the first seismic data from the surface of another body (because we've now invented the seismometer).

Spoiler: Intrepidity 3, first kermanned Mun landing. (Needless to say, this will be a long one.)

Spoiler

The Frumious III rocket awaits launch of Intrepidity 3, the first attempt to put Kermen on the surface of the Mun.

The rocket lifts off the following dawn, powered by a total of fifteen T45 engines. It successfully puts mission commander Melxie, flight engineer Chris, and scientist Laselle in orbit, although the second stage uses more fuel than expected circularizing.

The second stage, powered by a single T45, reignites to send Intrepidity 3 on its way to the Mun. Unfortunately, it runs out of fuel slightly short of the end of the burn, and although the LV-909 service module engine is used to put the spacecraft back on course, the spent rocket stage is left in a highly elliptical Kerbin orbit rather than the intended trajectory to impact the Mun.

Melxie's view out the command module window during the departure burn.

The Block II spacecraft features a basement orbital module aft of the heat shield, which provides extra living space during the trip as well as a secondary, downward-facing cockpit which Melxie will use during the final descent to the Munar surface.

Melxie's view of the crescent Kerbin from the orbital module as Intrepidity 3 passes behind the Mun. As with the previous mission, commerical comsats will provide near-continuous coverage even while the spacecraft is orbiting the far side of the Mun.

The ship successfully captures into orbit and begins its descent.

Success! Intrepidity 3 makes a safe landing on the midlands of the Munar near side.

Mission commander Melxie gets out and descends the ladder to become the first Kerman ever to set foot on the surface of the Mun.

"I was going to say 'that's one small step for a Kerman' but it's really more like a five-meter drop… I swear there was another ladder here on the prototype…"

"Whoops…augh!" *bonk* "Ow. Bugger." And with these immortal words, the first Kerman sets foot er, helmet on the surface of another world.

So much for dramatic tension. Anyway--Melxie: First Kerman on the Mun!

Laselle and Chris join Mel on the surface for a group shot with the flag. They radio reports back to mission control and collect samples for return to Kerbin before boarding their spacecraft for the journey home.

Intrepidity 3 lifts off, and, once in orbit, performs one final burn of its LV-909 service module engine to put it on a trajectory back to Kerbin.

Except for the small problem that it doesn't have enough fuel. The crew transfer to the command module and jettison the service/orbital module, but the ship is still 57 meters per second short of a trajectory that will intersect Kerbin's atmosphere. Rescue mission time.

Or is it? Although 57 m/s is too far for the crew to push the four-tonne spacecraft with their EVA jetpacks, flight control works out a trajectory that will take the spacecraft past the Mun again after two orbits--for a correction of only 5.8 m/s.